It was the Matryoshka doll of stories*

I'll update my 50 books progress today, before I get too far behind...

#9. The Blind Assassin
by Margaret Atwood
Apr. 7-Apr. 15, 2007
This is the book the title of this post refers to. There are 4 nested stories in this book: 1) Newspaper reports about an important Canadian family. 2) A first person narrative by one of the members of the family, Iris, about her family and the circumstances surrounding the writing of a famous novel (called The Blind Assassin) by her sister. 3) The text of the novel. 4) And a story told by one the characters in the novel, about a blind assassin. The nested stories work together to reveal a mystery such that I was trying to piece together what really happened, and how it related to the novel, based on the different points of view. If I were giving gold stars, this would get 5 out of 5.

#10. Thank You, Jeeves
by P.G. Wodehouse
Apr. 15-Apr. 19, 2007
Bertie takes up the banjolele, which Jeeves hates, so Jeeves leaves his employment to work for one of his friends. Said friend is in love with Bertie's ex-fiancee, an American girl, whose father is considering buying the friends unwieldy estate and hates Bertie. They all end up on the estate together for a weekend. Hilarity ensues.

#11. Gulliver's Travels
by Jonathan Swift
Apr. 20-May 5, 2007
This is one of the books that has sat on my shelves unread for over a decade--according to the front I paid $3.99 for it, probably in the mid-nineties. It was probably unread because I've seen a number of made-for-t.v. movies of it, so I knew the story, and didn't find it particularly motivating. But in an effort to keep my book-buying addiction in check, I'm trying to read the books I already have, so here I am. Well, this was a pretty sharp political satire dressed in an adventure story when it was published. I prefer my political satire to be funny too, though. I'd probably give this 3 stars, though they'd be the red ones, since this is a historically important book but not my particular cup of tea.

#12. The Polysyllabic Spree
by Nick Hornby
Apr. 26-Apr. 27, 2007
Speaking of buying too many books, this is a collection of columns from a magazine about Nick Hornby's book-buying addiction replete with books purchased and books actually read lists at the beginning of each column. He does better with reading the books he buys each month than I think I do, but I suspect he has more reading time too. As usual, he's funny and self-deprecating.

*yes I looked this up in wikipedia to see what the official name for Russian nested dolls was...fact-checking is the most frequent reason for the yawning space between posts here. I'll think, hey I should put something up about X, but then think of the research I would have to do to have an informed opinion about the topic, and by the time I get done the impulse has passed. C'est la vie.